Category: Howtos

Craft a Temporary Light Tent Out of Paper and Binder Clips

source – mostlycolor.ch ; lifehacker.com author – Nathan Moroney

Does the web need yet another how to post on making your own light tent? There are certainly other good options out there for DIY light tents.

But using just paper and binder clips it’s possible to make an even cheaper and even simpler light tent. And if for some reason you get beet juice on it, it can be recycled.

Start with three A3, 11″ by 17″, foolscap, B, tabloid or similar size medium-thickness pieces of paper. Then get 4 binder clips. In a pinch paper clips will work.

Take one of the sheets of paper and fold it in half lengthwise (1). Then make a roughly one inch fold on one of the ends perpendicular to the first fold (2). Cut a roughly 2.5 centimeter slit on the other end of first folded edge (3). Finally fold a T-shape with the slitted end (4). This is the first side of your light tent.

Attach a binder clip to the folded side near the T-fold side to clip together the edges of the paper that were formed with the very first fold.

Take a second piece of paper and fold it in half lengthwise (5). Then make a roughly 2.5 centimeter fold on one of the edges perpendicular to the first fold (6). Note that folds 2 and 6 mirror each other. That is fold 2 above is to the right while fold 6 is to the left. This step isn’t critical but will result in sides that are mirror images. Once again make a roughly 1 inch slit (7) and T-shaped fold (8).

Attach a binder clip to the second side in the corresponding position as was used for the first binder clip.

Almost done. Take the third piece of paper and make a fold on one of the short ends of the page. This page will be the back and bottom of the light cube. The fold will be used to attach the paper to the sides and should be about thumb wide.

Take the two sides and position them in front of you with the T-folds away from you. The sides should be about a page width apart. The mirroring of folds 2 and 6 should be evident and in this case they fold out from the center of the light tent.

Use the last two binder clips to attach to the folded edge of the back/bottom page to the T-folds of the two sides. The folded edge of the back/bottom should sit on top of the slitted edge of the inner T-folds of the sides.

That’s it.

There are plenty of variations. More binder clips can be used to add stability. Double folds can be used if the paper is thinner. Different colored paper can be used for different colored light tents. A fourth folded page can be added as a top. I typically shoot with indirect office lighting or reflected daylight so the four sided cube is adequate.

This light tent can also be scaled up and down. How else to take photos of your new light tent but inside of a larger light tent? Cheap railboard is great for larger versions. In the intrest of brevity, instructions for matryoshka light tents will not be covered in this post. Given the wide availability of paper and paper clips it’s also quite handy to be able to construct a light tent as needed, especially when traveling, in a co-worker’s cube or on the beach. It takes me about a minute to make one from scratch. The binder clips can be removed for lay-flat storage of the light tent. The resulting images, for example the composition below, are sufficient for many uses, even blogging.

And remeber if you get beet juice on your light tent it can easily be recycled.

Build a Clean, Wall-Mounted Charging Station

source – lifehacker.com author – Adam Pash

Ugly cords are the obvious villain in your gadget-charging clutter, but even if you put together a nice charging station, you’ve still got to sacrifice some counterspace to your charging station’s footprint. This clean, wall-mounted charging station tackles both problems.

Pam from home blog Bibbidi Bobbidi Beautiful details how she put together an attractive, cordless, clutter-free charging station with a simple ledge shelf and some picture hanging strips.

She mounted the shelf on top of her outlet (depending on how concerned you are with fire hazards, you may want to reconsider that aspect) with the help of the hanging strips, effectively hiding both the outlet and the chargers from view. The cords also remain hidden by the shelf, and all that’s left is small dongles sticking out the top for you to get your charge on. It’s simple but effective, just hows we likes it.

The Complete Guide to Windows System Restore (It’s Better than You Remember)

source – lifehacker.com

Most of us remember Windows System Restore as a lame-duck feature from Windows XP; when it seemed we might benefit from using it, it never quite worked how we expected. That’s no longer the case.

Windows System Restore is an awesome system recovery tool, and it’s included with Windows for free. It’s the ideal solution for rolling back bad drivers, fixing when buggy software breaks your PC, or simply rolling you back to a previous point in time. If you’ve still got a bad taste in your mouth from the lackluster XP version of System Restore, it’s time to take a look at it again if you’ve upgraded to Windows 7 or Vista.

System Restore in Windows 7 Is Better than XP

If you’ve ever tried the XP variety of System Restore, the uselessness of it probably left a bad taste in your mouth. Setting a system restore point was often agonizingly slow, and when it came time to actually attempt a system restore, it rarely did what you wanted it to do. But if you’ve upgraded to Vista or Windows 7, you should really give System Restore another chance.

Back in the XP days, system restore simply used a file filter and copied files around, but since Vista, it uses the Shadow Copy features built into Windows—essentially, Windows can create a snapshot of your drive as of a certain point in time, which can then be used later to restore your PC should anything go wrong.

Read entire article at lifehacker.com

The How-To Geek deleted his system32\drivers folder for fun, and used System Restore to easily get the PC running again. His geeky articles can be found daily here on Lifehacker,How-To Geek, and Twitter.

Windows 7 drains battery life

Microsoft’s Windows 7 is sucking the life out of laptops and netbooks at a faster rate than its predecessors, according to computer users who posted their complaints on a support forum maintained by the software maker.

Some users are complaining that the operating system is draining their batteries at an alarming rate, while others say the OS is issuing false alerts, warning them that their batteries are about to run dry despite having a full charge.
“Unbelievable!” wrote forum member RVBoston, in a post Wednesday. “It is Feb 2010, so this issue is already 8 months old and no fix from MS?”

Another user, Mnemeth, also complained that the problem has been ongoing for months. “It was working fine then all of a sudden, around the 1st or 2nd week of October 09, it wouldn’t hold a long charge and I got the error,” the user wrote.

One forum member said the glitch forced him to switch to an alternate operating system.

“After 20 years of using Microsoft OSes, I’m moving to Linuxpermanently,” wrote Russ Latham. “I just wiped Win 7 off my new Acer and installed Ubuntu 9.10. Everything works and the battery is showing normal capacity,” he wrote.

Microsoft officials, according to numerous Internet reports, confirmed that they are investigating the issue.

“The warning received on some computers using Windows 7 uses firmware information to determine if battery replacement is needed,” a company spokesman said.

“We are working with our partners to determine the root cause of what appear to be erroneous warnings and will update the TechNet forum with information and guidance as it becomes available,” said the official.

source – informationweek.com

Save CPU Cycles by Disabling the Windows 7 Search Feature

Here I found something that annoys the hell out of me, when using my W7 – read on…

unfortunately …

If you can’t get used to the new search feature in Windows 7, or you just prefer using Everything,Google Desktop, orLaunchy, you might be interested to know you can disable it.

While we’re not recommending to average users to disable the built-in search functionality, if you really don’t use it, you could save yourself some CPU cycles by getting rid of it. Over at How-To Geek (my home away from Lifehacker), we’ve got a guide to the quick steps to disabling the built-in Windows Search feature, but you can do it easily by simply heading into the Control Panel, searching for “Turn Windows features on or off”, and then unchecking Windows Search from the list.

Once you’ve restarted your PC, you’ll notice that the search box is gone from the start menu, and there will no longer be a search box in Windows Explorer when you’re browsing through the file system. You should also note that Microsoft Outlook’s “Instant Search” feature depends on Windows Search, so that will use the slower Outlook search instead.

It’s definitely not a setting for everybody—and frankly this writer loves the Windows 7 search box, but if you never use it, at least now you know how to disable it. If you prefer your instructions in step-by-step format, click the link for the full guide.

source – lifehacker.com

Remove a Stripped Screw with a Rubber Band

The head of the screw you stripped while you were hanging that shelf may not have seemed like a big deal at the time—until you needed to unscrew it, that is. Next time you’re having trouble, try a rubber band.

Home hacks and design blog Apartment Therapy offers a a few simple, smart tips for removing a stripped screw without any special equipment like an extractor—like using a rubber band:

A rubber band may aid in providing enough grip to remove, or at least loosen, the screw. Place a wide band rubber band [in between] the screw driver (we recommend bumping one size up from the screw head which caused the strip) and the screw, then apply hard, but slow force as you turn. If you’re fortunate, the rubber band will fill in the gaps caused by the strip and allow extraction.

They also suggest more obvious solutions like changing the size of your screwdriver, using pliers when possible, or just pounding the screwdriver into the screw head with a hammer, hoping you can create your own traction. If you’ve ever tried the rubber band trick—or have your own favorite method—let’s hear how it worked in the comments. If your screw’s just fine but your screw hole is stripped, a golf tee may be all you need.

source – lifehacker.com

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